In a brief in support of the PTO, the National Academy of Sciences and several biotech companies argued that granting the EST patent could chill research by creating widespread fears of infringement suits.
And scientists in other countries may still derive stem cell lines without fear of patent infringement.
Mr Cable said: "Allowing people to create parody or satire without fear of copyright infringement has the potential to boost the creative industries and expand their freedom of expression".
And, Hearn indefatigably tells us, "of late there has grown up a peculiar literary sub-genre of adult novels drawing on the Oz mythology," such as Geoff Ryman's "Was" (1992) and Gregory Maguire's "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West" (1995)—the products, presumably, of Oz-besotted children now aged into postmodern creators freed from fear of copyright infringement.
Anyone who stepped inside a Belmar bar on parade day earlier this month would find that bar playing music without fear of copyright infringement.
Like other startups in this field (MOG, Spotify, Deezer and many others), the main challenge for Rdio will be to get the major players from the recording industry on board to supply music to its online catalog without fear of copyright infringement litigation.
In February MySpace started blocking Imeem widgets, supposedly because of fears of copyright infringement.
When collective management of intellectual property can move the field forward, such arrangements could ease growing fears of patent infringement and crippling lawsuits.
This i-brief attempts to alleviate the fears of privacy infringement by bringing to light certain safeguards built into the Digital Millennium Copyrights Act ("DMCA") to deal with the possibility of both fraudulent identity subpoenas and infringement into personal privacy.
